


It's Curtains For you

by ky old RK stuff (kuroiyousei)



Series: November Quick Fics [2]
Category: Rurouni Kenshin
Genre: Canon Setting, Language (general), M/M, POV: Saitou, Queer Saitou, Queer Sano, Sexuality/sexual references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-09-28 00:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17172785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuroiyousei/pseuds/ky%20old%20RK%20stuff
Summary: Regarding the amenities in Saitou’s office.





	It's Curtains For you

Indifferent as he was to most westernization, Saitou had a distinct opinion on the new curtains. They were part of a continual project intended to 'increase the comfort and convenience and augment the dignity of the much-respected Tokyo police force,' a project that had strangers in and out of his office on a regular basis taking measurements and assessing colors. The result was gaudy and provokingly red, didn't necessarily match the fresh wallpaper as well as they believed it did, not to mention something that would require dusting or laundering or airing or whatever you did with long curtains -- which meant further invasion of his privacy on a regular basis with no foreseeable end. 

And it wasn't as if the window needed any covering... This second-floor chamber wasn't susceptible to invasion through that route -- not that the curtains would do much good if it were -- and even an assassin with a powerful weapon would never have the office's occupant in his line of sight since Saitou's desk was a good six feet forward. Still, he would probably get used to the stupid things eventually. 

It was ironic, when he'd just been grouching about the advent of intruders unrelated to police business in his space, how his heart leapt at the sight of Sano's head poking through the door. And there was something like the exact opposite of irony -- a feeling of interest, of piquancy, based not on contradiction but on precise similarity -- about the way Sano's face lit up when he saw Saitou. 

"Here you are!" the rooster said cheerfully as he opened the way more fully and stepped inside, closing it firmly behind him. He studied the office with a quick and seemingly fairly negligent eye before returning his happy gaze to Saitou and sauntering toward him. "This is nice! I've never seen this part of the station before, only the shitty downstairs." As something seemed to occur to him, he frowned slightly and added, "Funny how it gets less Japanese as it gets nicer up here." 

A recent conflation of 'refurbish' or 'improve' with 'westernize' was one aspect of the movement Saitou _did_ actively disapprove of, but, though he admired Sano for making the point, he was too impatient to know something else to pursue that topic right now. "How did you find my office? Have you been invading every room on the second floor looking for me?" 

"Well, only the unlocked ones," Sano replied without compunction, placing both hands on Saitou's desk and bending to give him a cheeky grin. "And I only just peeked in to see if I had the right room; I didn't interrupt anything." 

Saitou leaned back in his chair and, after a long drag, blew cigarette smoke up into the young man's face. The harshest expression he could command, however, was a wry smile at the thought of Sano startling every single officer and secretary all along the hallway in his quest to visit his relatively new lover at work for the very first time. He tried to concoct a reprimand, but his brain kept stumbling over that idea -- Sano was _visiting him at work_ \-- and suggesting statements and actions _completely_ different both from what needed to be said and done and even what was feasible to say and do in this context. Finally all he managed was, "Well, now that you know where my office is, you can avoid harassing my co-workers going forward." 

"That sounds like an invitation to come back in here whenever I feel like it." Sano's grin had intensified, and now he knelt upward onto the desk, drawing his second leg after so he straddled the paperwork Saitou had been busy with and the wolf would be forced to reach right between his wide-angled thighs should he wish to rescue it. 

"You have a gift for selective interpretation." Not favoring how inaccessibly far above him Sano's face now hovered, Saitou stood, reaching past the young man on the desk to stub out his cigarette in the ash tray as he did so. This was going to fully confirm the presumed invitation for Sano to return routinely, but to be honest Saitou hadn't really planned on contradicting it. Instead he put one hand on each of Sano's knees to protect the stack of sheets in between, and moved in close. 

Sano's arms wrapped eagerly around Saitou's neck, crossing at the wrists as he tilted forward to bring his face nearer the other man's. "What time do you get off?" he asked in a tone that was half faux-casual flirtation and half ridiculous husky seduction. 

"Not until I get you into bed," Saitou replied with a smirk, sliding his hands off Sano's knees and halfway up his thighs on the inside curve, ruffling the overshadowed and largely forgotten papers. 

Sano chuckled appreciatively and bent to close the distance between them. His breath tasted like sake and something slightly spicy and the even spicier anticipation of the promised nighttime activity. 

Just then, noisy booted footsteps came pounding up the hallway outside so quickly and loudly that both men looked toward the door. "Chou," Saitou muttered in some irritation, withdrawing his hands disappointingly from their sneaky upward progress. 

Sano grunted in similar annoyance and, bracing himself abruptly on Saitou's shoulders, gave a little spring off the desk, barely missing sending the entire stack of paperwork flying. He'd no sooner hit the floor on the far side from the room's entrance than he'd ducked behind one of the unnecessarily elaborate curtains beside the window and concealed himself completely. 

Saitou wasn't sure how he felt about this. Yes, it was a brand-new relationship Chou didn't know about, and, yes, they'd been in a pretty compromising position just now, but if Sano planned on making these visits a regular thing, trying to keep them a secret from Saitou's assistant seemed futile and not worth the effort. Still, it _was_ a brand-new relationship Chou didn't know about, and Saitou _did_ take a certain amount of delight in the delicious novel privacy of Sano's presence. 

He didn't really have time to decide one way or another, since the aforementioned assistant came bursting in without knocking -- they might need to have a conversation about knocking -- and breathlessly right up to his desk without a pause. He slammed his hands down in a louder version of Sano's earlier gesture and gasped out, "Commissioner's on his way!" 

"Thank you, Chou." Both Saitou's statement and the nod that accompanied it were slightly exaggerated in response to the over-the-top delivery of this mundane news. And when Chou continued to lean on the desk and catch his breath Saitou was forced to add, "I'll let you know if I need anything." 

Grudgingly Chou acknowledged this dismissal by standing straight and backing away a step. "You sure you don't want me to--" 

Saitou cut him off before he could complete whatever spurious offer he was about to make as an excuse to stick around and eavesdrop like the gossip he was. "I'm sure." 

"All right, fine." And the broomhead made an exit as exaggerated as his entrance had been. 

The latch had barely clicked when Sano's warm hands were on Saitou's neck, moving up and down in a stroking, almost massaging motion he liked very much. But the comment Sano had to make was, "Nice of him to warn you like that." 

"He _does_ think he's being nice," Saitou admitted, giving Chou credit he rarely afforded him in person. "He's the type of person who never wants his boss to drop by unexpectedly, and he assumes I feel the same." 

"And you think I'm like that too," Sano concluded from Saitou's tone, indignant but simultaneously laughing a little. 

"You _did_ approve his choice to come in here and 'warn' me." 

Taking hold of Saitou's earlobes and using them as handles to tilt the officer's entire head back, Sano looked down into his face with a stern expression. "I _approved_ ," he said, "his choice to try to make your day easier." 

"You might make the same choice now and then," Saitou smirked as Sano's lips descended. 

Before they could come to rest, however, there was a proper knock at the door. Saitou found he'd been balancing his seat on its two rear legs as he leaned back to look at Sano upside-down, for as his lover released him and darted behind the curtain once more, the chair thumped onto the rug below with surprising heaviness. It made Saitou's "Come in" come out with more vehemence than he'd intended. 

Here was, as Chou had indicated, Kawaji, accompanied for the moment by Uramura, though Saitou knew full well the police chief would be dismissed presently without much reason given. He always went with good grace, knowing 'Fujita-kun' to be more than what he'd ever been let in on, but while he remained in the room there was a sort of wistful curiosity about his every word and gesture that amused Saitou faintly -- though perhaps not as much as, uncharitably, did his awareness that, at _this_ private meeting between commissioner and agent, a former kenkaya and present layabout with no connection to the force except that he was fucking one of its members would be hearing all the interesting details the loyal and discreet Uramura was barred from (and probably wouldn't even find them all that interesting). 

And they _weren't_ all that interesting. It was a pretty standard meeting with Kawaji: important, engrossing, but nothing to get fired up about. Saitou paid no less attention and responded with no less engagement than usual, and Kawaji certainly didn't appear to notice anything out of the ordinary... and yet there was a distinct difference to the proceedings in Saitou's mind that unquestionably sprang from the awareness of what waited for him behind that luxurious curtain. He had a hidden muse, a beautiful secret that made no real difference to the scene except to add an undercurrent of irrelevant entertainment as long as the conference lasted and a crackling anticipation for the moment it ended. 

Eventually it did end, no sooner or later than they ever did, and, though Saitou hadn't been _impatient_ , precisely, he did feel something like relief -- and definitely something like excitement! -- as he watched Kawaji's diminutive form disappear out the door. And once again, before the latter was even completely closed, Sano was upon him. 

Whatever interest or amusement mirroring Saitou's Sano had or hadn't felt back there, he was evidently tired of running out of time and getting interrupted, for in this instance he wasted no words: he stepped immediately around into the narrow space between the seated Saitou and the desk, leaned down, and, braced firmly on the armrests, kissed him thoroughly. Saitou did not protest that he should really get back to work, glorying as he was in the taste and smell and nearness of Sano, the feel of his tongue in his mouth, and wishing this chair were big enough for Sano to fulfill the movement toward which he was obviously inclined and crawl into Saitou's lap somehow. In fact gloved hands were making ineffectual tugging gestures at Sano's flanks beneath the open, dangling sides of his gi. 

And then they heard Chou's boots in the hall again. 

The sound Sano made as he broke free of the kiss and slipped away was almost more a laugh than a frustrated sigh, and Saitou rolled his eyes. It was annoying, but not as if they wouldn't have plenty of opportunity for this kind of thing in days to come, or kiss many times over and much more intimately tonight after work. The newness of the relationship and the situation rendered the separation more aggravating than it really was. 

The broomhead entered and reached Saitou's desk in another whirlwind of gaudy garb and hair, but now seemed less panicked and more eager to hear all the juicy news. "So what'd he want?" he demanded. 

"None of your business," replied Saitou in as cool a tone as he could manage given the lingering heat of his mouth. "Get out; I have work to do." 

The dramatic Chou looked so utterly crestfallen, staggering backward this time as if he'd been struck, that Saitou was forced to relent and promise, "I'll tell you about it later, when I have a chance." After all, much of it hadn't actually been strictly confidential, as least as far as Saitou's assistant was concerned. 

This seemed to be all Chou needed to cheer him, for he grinned and continued backing toward the door. "You better!" he said. 

"Oh, and, Chou..." Saitou raised a hand, then continued when the broomhead paused. "I'm going to need you to start knocking before you enter." 

Appearing a little surprised at this new development, Chou tilted his head slightly and said, "Got it," in an almost questioning tone -- as if the edict to knock on a superior's door instead of just bursting impetuously into the room was a peculiar one requiring explanation. But then his eyes strayed past Saitou's lifted arm in a direction the officer realized might be somewhat dangerous, and a thoughtful expression took his face. 

Cautiously, not daring to look behind him just yet, Saitou asked, "What is it?" 

"You know..." Chou put one of his own gloved hands to his face, rubbing his chin with a finger. "I kinda like the new curtains." 

Now Saitou did turn and give the curtains -- or at least one of them -- a long, searching glance, and was able to assure himself that, with the opulent amount of cloth the things were made of, there was no hint of where Sano was hidden even to someone that knew he was there. Which meant Chou wasn't making a snide comment but voicing an actual opinion. 

With a faint smile as part of a thoughtful expression of his own, Saitou turned back to his subordinate and admitted at a deadpan, "They're growing on me."

**Author's Note:**

> This was for plaidshirtjimkirk's November Quick Fics 2017 prompt, "Established Saisa where Sano visits Saito when he’s working and kisses him in his office." It was only a _barely_ established relationship, though XD


End file.
